A Plain Account of Christian Faithfulness: Essays in Honor of David B. McEwan

By Wipf and Stock

The title of this work--A Plain Account of Christian Faithfulness--is a play on John Wesley's famous book, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. It reflects the focus, character, and actions of David B. McEwan, for whom this book has been dedicated. The essays have been written by scholars from around the globe, each focusing on an aspect of faithfulness from a Wesleyan perspective, and covering the broad disciplines of Bible, theology, history, and pastoral theology. This book has something for everyone, and ultimately invites the reader into deeper Christian faith and faithfulness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: May 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532655593

Book preview

Preface

—Rob A. Fringer

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb

10

:

23

–

25

, NRSV¹)

It is with great pleasure and excitement that I introduce this volume of essays dedicated to David B. McEwan. I first met David in June 2013 at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester, England. David was there teaching a postgraduate course (probably on John Wesley), and I was there working on my PhD through the University of Manchester. About five months earlier, I had accepted a position as Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Nazarene Theological College (NTC) in Brisbane, Australia, where David was Academic Dean. Over the next two weeks of my time in Manchester, David and I had several walks, several talks, and several meals together. I quickly came to appreciate his breadth and depth of knowledge, which went well beyond the topic of John Wesley, and his faithfulness to Christ, the church, and to Christian education. A friendship developed in this short time that continues today.

Two years after arriving at NTC, I was elected principal, and David was among those who supported me during this transition. I have relied on him time and time again, finding in him great wisdom, encouragement, and genuine concern for my wellbeing. When David informed me that he would be retiring from his Academic Dean role after twenty years of service, I knew I had to find a way to honor his service to NTC and to the greater church in a way that he would both value and appreciate. This book, which brings together excellent articles from scholars from around the globe, who also happen to be great friends, colleagues, and former students of David’s, was my answer.

As I pondered the theme, the word faithfulness kept coming to the forefront. The title—A Plain Account of Christian Faithfulness—is a play on John Wesley’s famous book, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, of whom David B. McEwan has spent his academic career studying, teaching, and writing about. It also reflects the faithfulness that David has shown in his years of ministry and teaching.

The book is a mix of biblical, theological, historical, and pastoral essays, each focusing on aspects of faithfulness from a Wesleyan perspective. It is my hope that these chapters will do for you, the reader, what David had done for so many—that they will open your heart, mind, and soul, challenging you and beckoning you deeper in your faith journey with the Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

1

. Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture references throughout this book are from the NRSV.

Introduction

The Life of a Faithful Servant

—James McEwan and Shona Van Garderen

Birth and Early Years

While many people know David as a pastor, lecturer, or friend, few perhaps know the whole story of who he is and the journey on which he has been. Our father is a private man, but we wanted to share in this introduction an overview of what has shaped him into the person he is today.

David Bernard McEwan was born on the 20th of August 1950, in the town of Irvine, North Ayrshire, on the Scottish coast. David’s younger sister, Kirstie, was born in 1955. Their parents, Bernard and Mary, were also from small coastal towns in Scotland. Mary was a nurse and Bernard had been in the Royal Air Force before transitioning to his career as an exhibition cake decorator. Bernard became quite successful in his profession, receiving national and international recognition for his work.

Bernard’s work required the family to relocate twice, first to London in 1957, and then to Kent in 1963. David attended a number of schools during these periods including George Spicer Primary School, Minchenden Grammar School, and Bromley Grammar School for Boys. Some famous alumni from Bromley include Sir George Martin CBE (a.k.a. the fifth Beatle), Ken Wood (the founder of Kenwood appliances), and Billy Idol. While there had been the possibility of entering a medical career, David ended up graduating with a Higher National Diploma in Food Technology from the London South Bank University in 1970.

During his teenage years, David developed a passion for one of his lifelong loves—motorcycles. He loved his motorcycle and spent much of his time riding with friends around the area. Triumph motorcycles were, and are, his favorite and in his younger days he often fixed them up himself. His first bike was a 200cc Triumph Tiger Cub. He had a few major bike accidents when younger, which required having both knees reconstructed. If you listen carefully, you can hear them clicking as he walks.

David loved blues music and some of his friends formed a band that played in the local pubs; he would follow them and often took his tape recorder to record the sessions. Growing up in the greater London area, David had the opportunity to see several well-known bands play in their early days such as the Rolling Stones and Cream. The music scene must have been the trigger for David to learn the guitar, and while it is not something he’s well known for, his skill was good enough to play for church and Bible College events later in his life.

Australia Part 1

David immigrated to Australia in 1970 when he was twenty, as a £10 pom, and went to live with relatives in Sydney. They introduced him to the Church of the Nazarene, and he began attending services. During this season of his life he experienced Christ’s redeeming grace and became a believer. His time at church inspired him to enter the ministry and enroll at Nazarene Theological College (NTC), at the time based in Sydney. He would later graduate with a Diploma of Ministry.

David made trips with the church to Brisbane and on one such occasion went to help on a youth project. At the same time, a young woman named Christine Rouen was also working on the project. Christine and David were introduced to each other by the leader, but that was all that happened during the trip. Christine decided she liked David and wrote to him later, and so began their long-distance relationship. David would drive up from Sydney on a Friday night and stay in Brisbane to visit with Christine till Sunday afternoon, he would then drive back to Sydney to be at college on Monday morning. He later ended up moving to Biloela as part of his career in supermarkets and thus the relationship continued long distance. David and Christine were engaged on the day of David’s graduation and married in 1974.

After graduating, David accepted his first ministry position back in his home country of the UK, where he pastored several churches from 1975–80. During his first posting, he and Christine lived in Partick in Glasgow, Scotland in a traditional Scottish tenement. They were then transferred to Stockton-on-Tees in northern England where they lived in a traditional end-of-terrace house. The church was next door to the local synagogue and mosque. Kumba (Aboriginal for Sunshine) had become part of their lives at this time as a five-week-old Labrador puppy who traveled down from Scotland with them when they moved. They then moved down to Bristol as the final posting before returning to Australia. They had to leave Kumba behind, which was a great loss to both.

Australia Part 2

David and Christine returned to Australia in 1980 to pastor the Logan Church of the Nazarene in Brisbane, and a year later their son James McEwan was born. When he was only three years old, the family travelled to Kansas City, USA for David to complete his Master of Divinity at Nazarene Theological Seminary. His friend from college, Bruce Alder, along with his family, also moved there at the same time.

Anecdotes from others have revealed David to be a dedicated student who excelled in his studies and would often assist others. One colleague said:

David’s single focus on his studies and his breadth of reading is an attribute that has made him one of the foremost Wesleyan theologians in the global Church of the Nazarene. As a good Wesleyan theologian, he has always sought to be practical in his application of theology. His amazing intellect has given him the ability to quickly analyze a huge volume of material and succinctly go to the heart of the issue expressed. As you know, he does not suffer fools lightly, and quickly moves on to other interests if the conversation appears to be going nowhere. Having said that, he is amazingly patient with parishioners who need to talk.²

On his return to Australia in 1986 at the completion of his MDiv, David began pastoring the Wantirna Church of the Nazarene in Melbourne. He had the ability to take the small struggling church and help it become a vibrant community. While still regarded as relatively small, the church got involved in mission and community connections that punched far above their weight for the size. During this period his daughter Shona McEwan was born.

David has always been a gifted preacher and teacher. As such, he would hold Bible studies mid-week in Melbourne. He had hoped to develop a series of home groups with their own Bible studies, but people would rather sit under his teacher ministry in a larger group than divide up into smaller groups; they loved his teaching so much! His first experience in formal ministry in Britain had significantly shaped him as a pastor, taking seriously the pulpit ministry and visiting parishioners on a regular basis.

David is a real history buff, particularly British history. In the McEwan house, Braveheart is considered one of the worst movies of all time due to its historical inaccuracies. On a family trip to the UK in 1994, the family endured four weeks of being dragged to every castle and historical monument found across the isles. All of this was captured on video for posterity. If you were to watch one of these videos, you would think that David was vying for a job as a presenter on the BBC, with his high-quality narration and historical details on each location. Often the rest of the family would disappear out of the castle, having seen everything, whilst David was still only filming the first room!

In 1997 David took a position at Nazarene Theological College as Academic Dean and lecturer, requiring the family to move to Brisbane. This was a big move for us kids, happening during our formative years; so, to say we were reluctant at first is an understatement! However, we soon settled into life here in Brisbane, and it enabled both of us to grow enormously with help from our parents. David’s love of music extended to his son James, who has become an accomplished musician, with David often choosing the family car on the sole criteria of it being able to haul around a bass guitar, amplifier, and sometimes even a double bass as well.

David also reacquainted himself with motorcycles in Queensland, having never owned one whilst in Victoria. There have been a few different bikes over the years, and a few accidents to boot, landing himself in hospital more than once. He also joined a motorcycle gang (Ulysses), with the club motto of Growing Old Disgracefully. Shona inherited his love of motorbikes, going for her first ride at six years old and continuing to enjoy rides together on weekends well into adulthood.

His family has grown and expanded to include new children (Aaron Van Garderen, husband to Shona, and Candice McEwan, wife to James) as well as the recent addition of the first grandchild, Lukas Van Garderen. David is a doting grandfather (Papa, as Lukas likes to call him) and has been a great source of wisdom and guidance to all his children.

NTC was a small, struggling institution that was having difficulty establishing itself academically and within the church community. David grabbed hold of the challenge to develop the academic credibility of the college, and over a period of years he worked the academic processes with skill and insight. The college moved from an accredited Diploma in Ministry to a Bachelor of Ministry to ultimately offering a range of undergraduate and postgraduate awards. The amount of material required in preparation to achieve this was enormous. Yet, David was able to process all this in an amazingly timely fashion. His productivity level has been extremely high, almost like a tenacious bull terrier when he catches a vision of what needs to be done. He is a hard man to keep up with sometimes.

Never one to rest, David has continued to apply himself. He completed his Doctorate through the University of Queensland in 2006. He has become Director and Research Fellow at the Australasian Centre for Wesleyan Research. He has authored three books (2011, 2015, 2017), and has also contributed numerous book chapters and articles. He became pastor again for the Logan Community Church of the Nazarene (almost thirty years since his first run). Not even impending retirement seems to slow David down, as he has many other achievements beyond the scope of this introduction.

2

. Allder, David McEwan, email,

2018

.

Section 1

Biblical Perspectives on

Christian Faithfulness

1

The Fewest of All the Peoples

God’s Incipient Faithfulness to Israel

¹

—Joseph Coleson

Trying to exemplify David McEwan’s kind of common sense in my own fields of biblical and Near Eastern studies has involved revisiting some of the theological formulations, and even some of the facts we already knew, or thought we knew. This chapter addresses two such topics, Israel’s population in the two generations of their exodus from Egypt under Moses and their entering into Canaan under Joshua, and the manner of Israel’s entry into and initial settlement of the Canaanite Highlands. In presenting these issues and suggesting a way forward, I am not really blazing any new trails. Critical discussion of the two irreconcilable sets of facts within Israel’s Exodus traditions is at least a century old. Mendenhall ² published the philological key to Israel’s population sixty years ago, and the geographical, historical, and archaeological contributions have been available for twenty-five years now. Younger’s Ancient Conquest Accounts, published in 1990, furnishes the paradigm for understanding what Israel did in entering Canaan under Joshua and, equally important, what they did not do.

Biblical and ANE scholars have known; we just have not managed (if we have tried) to make our work known to the world beyond our guild(s). This has left believers, seekers, and skeptics alike to adopt, or reject, the same ancient misunderstandings—to attack or defend a straw man, with both victory and defeat irrelevant to the real historical and theological issues. An accurate account of Israel’s exodus and entry populations, and of the manner of Israel’s entry into Canaan, though, will allow us to understand the reality of Israel’s beginnings, as continued acceptance of inflated numbers and military results never will do. This new understanding highlights a central tenet of divine activity: From small beginnings, the fewest of all the peoples, God has birthed and sustains an eternal family.

Israel’s Exodus Population: The Present Texts

of Numbers 1, 26

The familiar data lead to the prevalent understanding that one generation of Israel left Egypt about three million strong, and the next entered Canaan in similar numbers.

Numbers 1 is a census report, the tribal tallies of Israel’s fighting men, twenty years old and older, who left Egypt in the Exodus with Moses. As it stands, the Hebrew text of 1:46 lists a total of 603,550 men. Numbers 26:51 records the total of the next generation, most of whom would enter Canaan, as 601,730. Several tribes’ numbers vary significantly, but the two totals are nearly equal.³

The usual procedure for estimating Israel’s total population is to assume one wife for one soldier, on average, for a sub-total of married persons of about 1.2 million. If, on average, each military couple had two living children not yet adults, the total reaches 2.4 million. The count of 600,000 fighting men does not include military-aged men unable to fight, nor men too old for service, nor Levites, so a reasonable extrapolation for both censuses would be about three million Israelites. But is 600,000 itself either a reasonable, or an accurately transmitted, total?

The Less-Familiar Biblical Data

The points introduced here are but a sampling of the relevant data and conclusions on and around this issue. The sets of census numbers as they now appear in the biblical text are vastly outweighed, both in number and in significance, by biblical data sets that make the census numbers impossible as they stand. Yet both data sets are present in the current biblical texts. Our question will be: Can they be reconciled?

Exodus 13:17

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, ‘If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.’

Why would they do that? Egyptian sources refer to the Way of the Philistines as The Way(s) of Horus; it was the main military road from Egypt to Canaan. It ran east by northeast just off the Mediterranean coast of the northern Sinai Peninsula. During this period, Egypt claimed hegemony over Canaan and maintained a string of forts along this highway, spaced about a day’s journey apart.

In the fifty years since the Six-Day War of 1968, significant archaeological investigation has been carried out along this most direct, most convenient, and most important route between Egypt and Canaan. Several of the Pharaonic fortress camps have been excavated, and others surveyed. The largest were designed and built to accommodate about four hundred troops each. Since they were fifteen to twenty miles apart, the Israelites, had God led them that way, would have come upon them one by one. Each time, then, the Israelite force of 600,000 would have invested a garrison of four hundred men. Even untested troops are not likely to run from a battle in which they outnumber their foe fifteen hundred to one. Yet, lest Israel falter and turn back from the Egyptian forces stationed along this military road, God led them another way.

Exodus 14:7

This verse should be translated, [Pharaoh] took six hundred picked chariots, even all the chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them (my translation).

All the chariots did not include those stationed in Upper Egypt, nor even every chariot in Lower Egypt. It simply means every chariot Pharaoh could mobilize quickly in the northeastern Nile Delta, where this narrative is set.

Six hundred chariots constituted a formidable force. Yet here, too, the Israelites would have had an insurmountable edge in forces-in-the-field. As nasty a fighting machine as the ancient chariot was against soldiers on foot, in this scenario each chariot would have faced one thousand Israelites. We may trust that Moses, a scion of Pharaoh’s house, would have known how to deploy his overwhelming numbers so as to defeat even the best fighting machine of the day. Yet the appearance of Pharaoh and his six hundred chariots threw Israel into a panic.

Exodus 17:6

When Israel faced death from lack of water, God told Moses, ‘I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.

At various locations in the southern Sinai Peninsula, underground streams run just behind thin layers of the granite hillside walls of sandy, gravelly canyon floors, a few feet above the surface of the ground. A sharp blow with a stout staff at the right point can shatter the granite and release the stream. This does happen. But enough water from one such opening to supply three million people and their livestock? To say nothing of the (impossible) length of the queue along the new river’s bank, or of the (unreported) miracle that no one drowned in the sudden gush of such a volume of water released upon a gathered crowd unawares.

Exodus 17:8

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.

Amalek was a confederation of nomadic clans, ranging across much of the Sinai, and into the southwestern areas of what became known as Israel’s Negev. We may think of them as one group of the ancient precursors of what more recently have been called the Bedouin tribes.⁴

From earliest times in this region, absent a strong central government, most pastoralists have been quite ready to attack any group traveling through their territory, if they thought victory certain and quick. When passing near unwalled towns, they did not hesitate to steal whatever (or whomever) they could carry off. Just as predictably, most were careful to avoid encounters with any they thought likely to put up a stout defense.

The total Bedouin population at the time of modern Israel’s returning control of the Sinai to Egypt in the early 1980s was about 70,000 persons. Sinai’s total population at the time of ancient Israel’s exodus cannot have been greater than that, and not all would have been Amalekites. Moreover, not all Amalekites would have been close enough to participate in this surprise attack upon Israel. The Amalekites could not have numbered more than a few thousand men. If Israel fielded 600,000, they enjoyed at least a sixty-to-one advantage. No pastoral group in history would have picked a fight with so overwhelmingly superior a foe. They would have hidden as quickly as possible, or even moved out of the area until the threat had passed.

Exodus 23:29–30

Toward the end of the Covenant Code, referencing the promise to drive out the Canaanites, God said, I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

The land area allotted to the several tribes of Israel on both sides of the Jordan River was about 6,000 square miles. If Israel’s settlement generation numbered three million persons, their average density would have been five hundred persons per square mile. Could any district have experienced an increase in predatory animals sufficient to put many humans at risk?

Numbers 3:43

This verse deals with redeeming firstborns by God’s selection of the tribe of Levi to serve the tabernacle and its offices. The total enrollment, all the firstborn males from a month old and upward, counting the number of names, was twenty-two thousand two hundred seventy-three.

If we divide this number into the total number of fighting men, taken as 600,000, the ratio is about twenty-seven to one. Yet these are the total number of male firstborn of (essentially) all ages, while the warriors included only those twenty years old and above. Doubling the total number of males in Israel’s population would not be an unreasonable move, then, but would Israel’s firstborns each have had twenty-seven (or fifty) siblings?

Deuteronomy 7:7

Here, God called Israel the fewest of all the peoples (my translation).

Egypt then was the largest and most powerful of the Mediterranean/western Asian nations, with one to three million inhabitants. Israel’s population cannot have equaled (or exceeded) Egypt’s.

Some biblical references (e.g., Deut 7:1) note seven nations/people groups in Canaan that Israel would displace. The total of these nations, compiled from the several lists, is ten. I see no reason to reject Dever’s recently published figure of 100,000 as Canaan’s total population at this time.⁵ Divided among ten people groups (a bit simplistic), they averaged ten thousand each. If Israel totaled three million persons, any assertion that they were the fewest of all the peoples, even if intended rhetorically, would have been absurd.⁶

Joshua 6

God gave Joshua a unique stratagem for taking Jericho. The priests were to carry the ark of the covenant and lead Israel’s troops in marching around the city in silence, once a day for six days. On the seventh day, all were to march around the city seven times.

We are not concerned here with the why of this approach, but in the logistics of the march. Ancient Jericho sat atop the ten-acre hillock now known as Tell es-Sultan, at the western edge of modern Jericho. If all Israel’s troops were involved in this daily maneuver, as the text leads us to believe; if they traversed an oval path more or less parallel with Jericho’s defensive walls; if their formation was roughly a rank-and-file resembling a many-spoked wheel; and if their numbers totaled 600,000, the outer circle of men would have marched/walked about thirty miles (48 km) each day, about twice the ordinary day’s journey of an army on the move. On the seventh day, they would have covered about 210 miles (338 km). The narrative does not mention miraculous aid in these efforts.

Population is a factor here, also. Using Dever’s estimate of one hundred persons per acre,⁷ Jericho’s ten acres had a normal population of about one thousand people. Possibly, we should double that, as some in Jericho’s nearby, dependent unwalled villages would have sought refuge inside the city (others would have fled the vicinity). Even pressing every man and boy into service, Jericho could not have had more than seven or eight hundred defenders. Israel’s army would have outnumbered them at least seven hundred fifty to one. In the face of such odds, what ancient king, unable to expect relief from his neighbors, would have committed his people either to certain death or, somehow surviving a catastrophic defeat, to certain slavery?

Extraordinary Events: A Special Consideration

We touched on this point obliquely in considering the water from the rock at Rephidim (Exod 17:6). I am refraining here from using the word miracle. To moderns, the terms miracle and miraculous refer to almost any purported appearance or act of God, and even many people of theistic faith have trouble believing events such as this one can or do happen. The ancient worldview and mindset held the opposite; everything existed, and every event happened, because of the direct will and action of God (or the gods).

The ancients did, however, distinguish between the everyday and the extraordinary, just as we do. One of the measures of a god or a goddess, and of Israel’s Yahweh as against the pagan deities, was God’s (or the god/dess’s) extraordinary acts on behalf of God’s (or their) adherents, and/or against opponents or nonbelievers. How these extraordinary events happened is beside the point here. Even if all of them are explainable in natural terms today, they still were regarded and recorded as Yahweh’s extraordinary actions on Israel’s behalf. Two examples will illustrate this point.

Example #1

If water had been needed for three million persons and their livestock at Rephidim, the author would have reported not only that Moses struck the rock at God’s command, but also that God prevented anyone from dying due to the sudden unleashing of such a torrent through a single opening. The text does not report this.

Example #2

No ingenious arrangement of any queue could have allowed three million people to walk from one camp to the next during the daylight hours of a single day. Also, crossing the Red Sea and the Jordan River, and passing through several bottleneck points along the Sinai routes, would have required something like only ten persons per rank. At (an impossibly tight) two meters of ground per rank, and 300,000 ranks, the column would have been about 370 miles (595 km) long.⁸ If this had been Israel’s situation, the relevant passages in Exodus and Numbers would have reported God’s unusual measures for moving them all together from each place to the next. But they do not; the camp-to-camp journeys themselves were not extraordinary events.

Mendenhall’s Solution

To this point, we have the two census lists of Numbers 1 and 26 recording a population for Israel’s exodus/entry generations impossibly greater than other biblical evidence allows. No matter how one values, or does not value, the Bible, this presents an interesting conundrum in the text. Many have tried to defend/explain the census lists while ignoring the several dozen other biblical (and extrabiblical) statements, data, and implications that are falsified if the present texts of the census totals stand uncorrected. The usual defending-the-Bible motivation is not realized by this approach; rather, the problem is aggravated. A more reasonable approach is to accept the logic/demonstration of the many other data sets and investigate the transmission of the census lists. Of these approaches, we find Mendenhall’s most credible.

In his definitive study, The Census Lists of Numbers 1 and 26, Mendenhall set out two assertions he said everyone agrees on. First, in the census lists the Hebrew word ʾelef does not mean thousand, as the Hebrew text itself traditionally has understood it, and as virtually all translations have rendered it. Rather, ʾelef refers to some subsection of a tribe. Second, the numbers as they stand are impossible. He demonstrates that ʾelef in these lists means something like squad, or platoon. For example, rather than reading Reuben’s total (Num 1:21) as 46,500 men, we should read forty-six units (squads/platoons) totaling 500